ggg
Casino was right. It was loud when they all got together and you did have to shout sometimes to make yourself heard. And there was sure a houseful now, just as he'd promised. The whole family had come in for Sunday dinner and he was enjoying the effort it took to keep them all straight.
Rebecca O'Connell married Marcus, Casino's older brother when she was just out of school. He'd dropped out but insisted she finish. He'd gotten in trouble, but insisted she stay clear of all of that. He'd stuck up for her in school, when he was there, and in the neighborhood when the people in it, mostly middle European immigrants started hassling her for her Irish temper, red hair and freckles. She'd come over with her family when she was ten and still had the lilting accent and certainly had the temper. Her parents were dead and her two brothers were in the Navy serving somewhere in the Pacific. She'd brought her boys to live with Ma and Pop since Marcus' conviction and was working as a secretary at Chris' office while they waited out the rest of his prison term. He had six more years to go.
Casino's twin nephews Joseph and Michael were red haired like their mother but darker, tempered by their father's family coloring into a rich deep mahogany. The kids were mirror twins and about the only way to tell them apart was which way their hair parted. They'd just recently taken to combing and oiling it straight back to eliminate even that small hint. The family got around that by just ruffling their hair up when they wanted to know who they were dealing with. The boys were starting to get into more than just petty trouble and had recently taken their first car. They'd been brought home with a warning by the officer who caught them joy riding. He was a local man and knew the family and knew how hard it was to keep your nose clean with a dad that was in prison, especially when everyone in the neighborhood knew it. Not very attentive in school the grades they'd recieved at the end of the year required summer school and they complained bitterly about that to anyone who would listen using all the drama that filled every thirteen year old soul to plead their case.
The youngest brother, Stefan, tallest member of the family even at 17, was dark like Casino, nearly black hair and brown eyes. But where his brother was solidly built, tough, and garrulous, he was slight, intense and introverted. He was determined to go into the service as soon as he could, and he'd been pestering his parents to let him leave school and join up. He was good in school, learning seemed to come easy to him and he'd taken language classes since the war started as part of his preparation for going over to Europe. He didn't speak very well, there was a bit of a hesitation in his speech because of an early childhood stutter, but he could understand, read and write German and he'd made a start on Italian. He was spending the summer with his older sister and her husband. He had his uncle teaching him how to handle a pistol and practiced every day on the police firing range. He'd just recently taken up boxing and weightlifting, trying to add a little bulk to his lanky frame.
The oldest sister Lawenda and her family were a younger version of Casino's parents. They'd married when they were both eighteen and had to wait for the children to come along. Nick joined the police force and was working his way up the ladder. He was a lieutenant now, working vice. The kids, a boy, nine, and a girl just turned six, were the center of their lives. They both had a relaxed easy manner with them, using their love for one another to guide the little ones along the winding path of childhood. They hadn't given it a seconds thought when Stefan had asked if he could stay with them during the summer. He was family. That's what you did for family, you took care of them.
Casino's brother-in-law Chris with his blonde hair, pale complexion and light blue eyes stood out like a candle burning in a dark room when he was surrounded by the family. Casino was right though, as different as he appeared it seemed that he'd always been a part of them, laughing and joking easily as he moved around the room, seeing to it that his wife and his new little girl had what they needed and got where they wanted to go.
They'd been apart for so long that they were reveling in having this many members of the family in one place again. The only two missing were gone for completely opposing reasons. Angie, studying to become a nun, was in a convent in Virginia and Marcus, convicted of breaking and entering, was in a prison in the northeast corner of the state. Even though they weren't physically present they were well represented in the stories of the past that were now being told. Casino and Lawenda were currently passing the verbal baton back and forth as they told about being reprimanded by their mother as children...
"I swear she doesn't know one from the other when she gets mad. You should a heard her when we were kids. She'd call us all down and line us up. Right there, right at the bottom of the stairs."
"Then she'd climb up about halfway…."
"So she could look us in the eye, ya know?"
"And then she'd start to pace. March back and forth across that step as she recounted our crimes."
"Yeah!" Casino rocked back in his chair and laughed. "Punching and jabbin' at the air like a crazy woman!"
Garrison smiled, it seemed he'd seen a little of that action somewhere himself.
"And she never could remember our names."
"That's right! She'd turn on us n' try and single somebody out and end up just pointing and shakin' her finger. Hollerin' 'YOU! You know who you are!'"
"Or 'YOU! Who are you? And don't lie to me!'"
ggg
Casino's father watched the young Lieutenant make his way through the crowded room towards the kitchen, setting his glass in the sink before opening the screen and closing it quietly behind him. His retreat had gone unnoticed by the rest of the family as they continued to laugh and remember their past with jokes and stories. Then he saw his wife lean forward and start to pass Jeannette over to Becky. Of course she'd notice, he thought, smiling to himself, there wasn't much that happened with one of the children that she missed, and whether he knew it or not, the young man that had just left the room had taken up that position in their lives now. He pushed up out of his chair, he'd go check, she could stay with Jeannette. She'd probably just harry the poor man back inside in order to keep him under her watchful eye anyway. She had every reason to be concerned, the boy was still recovering, still tired easily, and the fevers came back when he pushed himself. But this raucous, crowded roomful of people was probably a bit overwhelming. He'd just step outside and keep him company, give him a bit of a break from all the noise.
He found him sitting at the back of the lot resting up against a tree looking back towards the house and motioned for him to stay where he was as he made his way there and lowered himself down to sit beside him.
"Are you alright, Craig?"
"Yes, sir. I'm fine." The sound of laughter drew his gaze back to the house. "You are a very lucky man."
"Yes." He studied the profile a moment and then looked across the yard at the house that held his family, held nearly everything, everyone, in the world that was dearest to him.
"I am." Turning he watched the youngster a moment longer, "But you're wondering how the boys could have gotten into so much trouble."
Garrison looked back at him, smiled slightly and gave a nod of confession. He had been sitting there wondering just that.
"It wasn't always like this… I nearly lost it all by being a fool."
Settling more comfortably against the tree he started to tell the story that he'd told to many of the children and young people that had come into their lives. The story that he hoped would help them avoid some of the trouble he'd gone through, that he'd put his family through.
"I'm ashamed to say that there was a time that I wasn't there for them. Not when they needed it most. They had to watch out for themselves, and they had to go find family to take care of them. They found the wrong kind. They went to my brothers and my uncles, and people I had known as a young man,,, who are into all sorts of trouble. I won't lie to you, Lieutenant, I was into all of that too, once. When I was young I… It was exciting. It was fun, and we never did anything that got anyone hurt."
He remembered the petty thievery and the times he and his friends would harass the merchants along the street where he'd grown up. The fights they'd get into with other groups of boys. The dares that led them into more and more dangerous pranks that quickly turned into crimes as they tested themselves against the local police.
"Then when I got married and the children came,,, I wanted so much for her, for them, and I couldn't get it, not on what I could make. And I'll admit there was a bit of arrogance too. I wanted to prove to her family that I could support her 'in style'. So I stayed in. It was so much easier and faster to make a lot of money all at once like that." Shaking his head at his own stubborn foolishness he continued. "She didn't want it. She tried to make me see, but I wouldn't believe her."
"We got caught, my cousin and I. We got caught with a whole truck load of stolen goods. They sent me to jail and we didn't have the money for bail. She wouldn't accept help from my family, she saw them as part of the problem, so she packed the kids up and went to her folks. The case fell apart and they had to let me go, but she wouldn't let me near her. She wouldn't have anything to do with me. Not until I straightened out. That's when I finally got it. That's when she finally convinced me that the things that I could get for her didn't mean anything to her."
"It was a struggle, there were times I didn't know how we'd keep a roof over our heads or afford to feed everyone. But it was a wonderful, joyful time too, because we were together. And I was learning what it really meant to be a man, to provide for and protect my family. I finally got a good job on the docks. I can't explain how proud I was when we bought this house from the money I was making when Angie came... She said she wanted to fill all the rooms with children. We almost made it. Then Joey died and it was like the world came to an end."
They sat quietly together as he remembered those dark terrible days when the world stopped spinning. The baby's death had thrown his wife into a deep depression and had taken her strength and support away from him. He tried to carry on for her, and keep the family going, but his own grief and guilt was too deep and he started drinking. As the drinking increased he started loosing time from work and the old contacts found out about his trouble and came back to use it to lure him back into business with them. But by then he was too far gone, too deep into the bottle to be useful to them, but they'd found the older boys.
"The light went out of everything. I didn't work…. I couldn't. I drank instead. The older kids had to do what I was supposed to do. The boys had to find enough money to keep the family together and they went with my brothers to do it. Lawenda took over the two little ones and tried to keep the place running. You see she was bad too. She didn't come out of her room for days at a time."
His wife regained her emotional balance in time to pull him back from the edge, but the two older boys were already too involved and they watched them be absorbed into the underside of life in the neighborhood. Marcus because he always wanted more than he had, and Casino because he felt his own guilt over the death of his brother, he'd been the one left in charge of watching him.
"By the time we both snapped out of it the boys were caught. They'd done it, they'd kept the family together, but they were caught up in it all. And it was fun, it was exciting… and they never did anything that really hurt anyone."
ggg
They sat there together, Garrison considering how easily something like that could happen. Casino's father pushed up onto his feet.
"Thank you for talking to the boys."
Garrison shrugged, "I didn't tell them anything that wasn't true."
He'd spent almost a hour with Stefan, encouraging him to stay in school and talking to him about possibly going on to college, even into the military academy to become an officer. With his quick intelligence and language skills the military could always make good use of him, but he hoped his argument had swayed the boy towards continuing his education… putting off his entry into that life until they had a chance to end the mess in Europe.
And he and Chris had spent an enjoyable afternoon as he discovered the ulterior motives behind all the 'toys' in their backyard. It seemed everything there had been constructed in such a way as to provide amusement and an opportunity for both Jeannette and Marika to increase their strength and balance as they used them. Jeannie was 'in therapy' every hour she played out there… Then there were the modifications he'd made to the house and the small lightweight wheelchair and crutches he'd built in the shop at the construction yard, fine tuning them to fit Jeannette as he had done for Mari. Craig had seen enough to know how important those things would be in the coming years. Both civilian and military survivors were going to need people who could make it easier for them to adapt to lives that would be limited by injuries they suffered in the war… and he'd told Chris he thought he should go into the rehabilitation section of the hospital he'd been in up north and see just what kind of equipment the patients were saddled with. The young man had taken up his suggestion and used the number Casino had to call and arrange a time to go up and take a look around. They agreed the girls should go too, and they were going to take the chair Jeannette had been given, and the one he'd made for her along so the doctors could get a look at what he'd done for her.
"Well, it meant a lot to them, and to Marika and my wife. We should probably get back in there." Smiling down on the younger man, "She'll worry and come looking if we're missing too long."
Garrison looked up and smiled, leaning forward he started to get to his feet but winced, drew in a sharp breath and reached across, grabbing his arm, pulling it close in against his ribs.
"Craig! Are you alright?!" The older man dropped down into a crouch and laid his hands on his shoulders.
"Yeah. Just give me a minute." He sat with his eyes closed, concentrating on controlling the pain in his side and shoulder. Breathing carefully, slowly, waiting for his muscles to relax and the discomfort to ease.
"I thought the doctors fixed everything."
"Nerve damage." He shook his head, slowly. "I guess they can't fix this." He hadn't had the pain since three days before they'd let him go from the hospital. He'd actually started to believe that the treatments might have made a difference.
"Do we need to get you back to the doctors?"
Garrison opened his eyes and forced a smile. "No. It's alright. It's already going away. Everything's fine." Pushing off the ground he got to his feet, accepting the help when Casino's father hooked him under the arm. "Let's go back in... Like you said, no sense worrying anyone."
